Sharing a blog I wrote at the Times of Israel:
Adding this to the original blog:
Acknowledgement re: Safe on Campus?
I would like to acknowledge that when I posted my previous blog “Safe on Campus?” I was not aware that there was in fact an act of violence outside Columbia University Library against an Israeli student. It is also reported that the suspect, Maxwell Friedman, self-identified as Jewish (which raises important questions about the participation of some Jewish people in Jew hate in the form of “criticism” of Israel):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12624319/Israeli-student-beaten-STICK-female-student.html
https://nypost.com/2023/10/12/israeli-student-attacked-outside-columbia-university-library/
Any act of violence must be condemned and legally responded to. Any act of violence also challenges my opinion expressed in the previous blog that the risk for physical violence is low. I still believe that the risk of violence on academic campus is low—though clearly it should be emphasized that it is non negligible.
At the same time, I stand by my argument that while physical violence must be legally defended against, the main problem on academic campuses is not physical violence but the vast indifference or hostility to Israel that is encouraged by misleading and disproportional analysis—and that ultimately leads to a dehumanization of Jewish people (dehumanization that, in turn, lends indirect intellectual support to real physical violence).
Campuses must ensure the safety of all students, but I believe (as explained in the previous blog) that Israel haters in the North-American academia generally understand very well the need to avoid physical violence and are not motivated to engage in physical violence. Therefore, advocacy should focus on the forms of Israel hate that are in fact allowed to exist—the distortions and disproportionate ideas about Israel that are sometimes developed though academic education and other academic work and activities.